[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Mexico [official website, in Spanish] on Friday ordered [press release, in Spanish] a school and teacher to compensate a student for their role in bullying, ruling that the teacher encouraged it. The private school, known as Universal Truth and Science Institute, and the teacher have been ordered to pay the seven-year-old victim 550,000 pesos or USD $35,000. The total includes tuition, costs for the trial and psychological treatments for the child. The court found that the teacher not only encouraged the abuse by the other children but also participated in it. The court further found that the child was studying in a hostile environment and the school did nothing to protect the child. “More than a warning, this is an invitation to schools that they understand that this phenomenon cannot be tolerated, and in a case where no measures are taken against it, there has to be a responsibility and a consequence,” said Justice Arturo Zaldívar Lelo de Larrea. “The private educational institutions are not just a business.”

Bullying is an increasingly important issue across the globe. In June 2013 Japanese lawmakers passed [JURIST report] anti-bullying legislation. In 2011 US Representative Jared Polis and Senator Al Franken [official websites] introduced legislation [JURIST report] to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students in federally funded public elementary and high schools from bullying. The Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) [text, PDF] was reintroduced in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate [official websites] prompted by the suicides resulting from anti-LGBT bullying of numerous students in the US. The legislation, however, failed to make it out of committee.